>> Notwithstanding the millions that NASA gave them in their early stages.

And the billions spent on the technologies that allow those engines to exist. SpaceX didn't invent rocket engines. It stands on the shoulders of many giants going back through Apollo to the early days. There are even traces of Soviet tech in the raptor (ie closed cycle). Nearly all of that work was funded by taxpayers ... and by whatever funded the soviet programs.

Building a better mousetrap is great, but that doesn't mean that all the previous mousetraps were not also great too.